Workmen's advocate., 1887-04-30
THE CAUSE OF IF. UNIVERSAL COMPETITION
 AND ITS RESULT.
Productive Power Greater Than Con. Sumptiye Power - Unwilling and Helpless Capitalists.
 Continual Disap.
 pOintments.
BY DR. A. DOUAI.

As long as capltalstic production on large scale was confined to England, and only to small extent to France and Belgium, so long the market for its merchandise was yir- tually unbounded and capable of constant enlargement. And as England possessed colonies in every part of the world with enormous populations, or with a rapidly grow ing population, where she could either oppress and kill the native industries, or where a nativ, indus try was from the outset impossible, there was not even prospect that she could, at any time, lack plenty of customers for her industrial pro- ducts in exchange for raw materials yctuals and exotic luxuries. All the lnbOrn weaknesses of her mercantile system remained undiscovered. and her unexampled prosperity and sue cess seemed to justify the wisdom of her economists and statesmen and excited the envy and emulation of all other states. ....
 Now there are dozen nations which have adopted her mode of production and distribution of the products--there are the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hun gary, Italy, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Denmark. All these nations are competitors with England, if not in all her industrial branches, at least in many, and with great success, too. They are, of course, at the same time competitors among them selves. The modern kind of pro- duction and dist st'ibution can now, for the first time, reap all it's nat ural results.
 We see now that everywhere in the world the productive power is greater than the consumptive one We see everywhere capital enor- mously increased, and the working population impoverished, thousands of very rich people and untold mil lions of proletarians or middle-class folks, who are sure to become such at an early time. The purchasing power has everywhere in the begin nlngs of the system very much in- creased and stimulated production, but gradually this seeming prosperi- ty has decreased, and is decreasing beyond recovery. It makes no con siderable difference whether coun- try have have protective policy, or so-called free trade one, or whether it has changed it's commercial policy twice or thrice. The result remains the same.
 How can it be otherwise? The accumulation of capital, when it does not return to the creators of wealth, must dry up the sources of purchasing power in the latter. The two powers, that of production and that of consumption, must continue to be as nearl y equal to each other, if exchange of commodities is to con- tinue beneficent to both and to the whole community. If the moisture which land receives from the ocean were not returned to it measure for measure by the rivers, the oceans would ultimately dry up. If the workers receive for their labor only small portion of the real value ere ated, and all the rest of 1t goes to feed the luxures of the wealthy and the accumulation of capital, the workers will ultimately be unable to buy back what they have created, and production must stop (which we call commercial crtses) either for time, and the longer for the longer a time, or ultimately entirely. There is nobody so blind as not to see that, except those who do not wish to see